ANST-601 Lessons

As the students take their seats, the professor lazily draws strange, yet somewhat familiar images in the air. Curious, the students start tracing the shapes with their own wands until the classroom ceiling is covered with oddly shaped animals. The professor smiles and snaps her wand sharply in the air. All of the images disappear in a moment, and the class focuses their attention to the front of the room.

Welcome back, students! Those interesting patterns we were tracing just now are some of the shapes that are referred to as The Lines of Nazca, or more simply, the Nazca Lines. We will be discussing these lines in some detail later in this class, however we will begin by discussing the culture of the Nazca.

The Nazca 

As you should recall from Lesson One, the Nazca were part of the larger Andean civilization, just as the Inca were. The Nazca civilization had a brief but important lifespan, lasting from approximately 100 BCE to 800 CE. They were located in a rather arid part of modern-day Peru, on the southeastern shore of the Pacific Ocean.

The Nazca were very creative and independent by nature, and often traded with other cultures both near and far. They fished and hunted for food, and also had a highly developed agricultural system, which included the use of man-made aqueducts.

 In terms of their culture, many of the characteristics we attribute to them are due to their beliefs towards magic. Let me clarify. Magic was at the core of everything they did. No, they were not a purely magical society. They had the same ratio of Muggles to wizards that other parts of the world had, but magic was not kept secret in any way. The greatest example of this cultural basis is their “capital,” Cahuachi. 

Cahuachi was not a city, nor was it an enormous temple, although there were many great buildings that were a part of it. Cahuachi was a ceremonial site surrounded by earthen mounds that the Nazca modified to fit their religious and ceremonial purposes. These ceremonies focussed mostly on three things: agriculture, water, and fertility. By studying the artwork of the Nazca, both pottery and textiles, magianthropologists have determined that real charms work was incorporated into these ceremonies, which did result in a positive effect on crop growth and flourishing livestock. Another great example of magical influence and openness in this society is the Nazca creation of great geoglyphs in the desert plains, which we will discuss in detail later in the lesson.

Sadly, the combined and open efforts of Muggles and wizards alike were not enough to save the Nazca civilization. Unlike the Inca, they were not decimated by an invasion. In fact, they lived a rather peaceful existence. What led to their ultimate demise was a combination of bad weather and their addiction to manipulating their physical environment. 

As I mentioned earlier, the Nazca altered the landscape of their land by creating mounds of earth. They also created the geoglyphs that I hinted at earlier. Most importantly, they completed a fair amount of deforestation in order to make room for those earthen creations, as well as their flourishing crops and livestock. What they did not realize was the removal of the trees, specifically the Prosopis Pallida tree that protected their land from wind and soil erosion, destabilized the soil. 

In approximately 500 BCE, a number of nasty, rainy years began. This period of time literally washed away the civilization. The weather washed away all the topsoil needed for growing crops, and severely crippled their aqueduct system. 

No amount of magic can bring an unfathomable amount of topsoil back to an area that has lost it all, and could not retain it even if it did return. By 750 CE the civilization fell apart, and by 800 CE it is thought that there were no remaining survivors of the culture. A tragic loss, as their Muggle-wizard collaboration was atypical for the time.

The Nazca Lines

While the Nazca are now gone, they left something incredible behind - the largest geoglyphs in the known-world. What is a geoglyph you ask? Well, in basic terms, it is a large-scale image or design produced in the natural landscape by techniques such as aligning rocks or gravel or removing the ground.  Furthermore, the complete form of a geoglyph is not visible close up, instead requiring that the viewer be a considerable distance from the glyphs, usually at a high elevation, or completely arial. 

Speaking of the Nazca geoglyphs in particular, each of these eleven mysterious features stretch over four metres long and show images mostly of animals, but also some plants and images that have confounded the Muggles since their discovery. They are only visible in their entirety from the air, which is another aspect of the geoglyphs that reduces Muggle scientists to tears when trying to figure out their purpose.

The Nazca created these geoglyphs by marking out the lines with poles and string. They then removed the red pebbles that formed most of the landscape along the lines, and dug a trench 10 to 15 centimeters  (four to six inches) deep. This trench let the white underlying clay show through in great contrast to the surrounding red stone. Due to the severe aridness of that particular inland area, these images have not been washed away by rain or storms and still remain today.

The exact purpose of these geoglyphs is not known for certain, although there are many theories.It is possible that these symbols represent highly important experiences the culture went through, or things they highly valued. Some have hypothesized that they could also serve as messages to travellers or those from other regions, though because they are difficult to see in their entirety except from the air, many have deemed this doubtful. Some Muggles have speculated that they are outlines of constellations, and others have thought they might be messages to aliens or others flying in the air. As the Nazca existed before flying broomsticks were invented, I suspect that it was a mix of both recording their history and also messages to travellers - those by sea, not air, however, as some of the images which are located on the sides of hills instead of on the flat plain would be visible from the water.

There are three images specifically that I would like us to look at today: The Hands, The Condor, and The Owlman. Please note, these are the Muggle names for these geoglyphs, and they are all erroneous. While we are examining them, keep in mind what the Nazca were trying to record or, in some cases, tell their visitors.

The Hands

I must admit, the lack of imagination that some Muggles can show does amuse me at times. There is no creature with hands that remotely resembles this geoglyph. I suppose they were simply at a loss to understand what they were seeing.

On the other hand, magianthropologists have long held the opinion that this image is actually a representation of Mandragora petaltum, more commonly known as the American mandrake. While the American mandrake is not quite as potent, or deadly, as its counterparts across the sea, however it is still used in many potions, even if those potions may not be as effective as those brewed with European mandrake.

This geoglyph then tells us a couple of things. First, the Nazca must have studied potion making in some detail in order to recognize the significance of this plant, as it is used for many purposes. Secondly, they must have either visited or been visited by other wizarding communities in the Americas, as American mandrake grows only in the areas of the modern day eastern United States and southeastern Canada. That’s a few thousand miles away! It’s highly unlikely that the Nazca could have acquired the plant without advanced magical transportation, owing to the great distance and impracticality of traveling my land, and the danger of traveling by boat through open ocean up the entire coast of the Americas. Therefore, how exactly this exchange happened, we are not certain, as there are no records of these visits. 

The creation of this geoglyph may have meant several different things. Perhaps the Nazca were looking to trade for mandrake and were hoping passing travellers would recognize their need. Perhaps they had made a great discovery using the plant in a potion and were celebrating their success. In any case, the plant obviously made a significant impact on their civilization for it to be recorded so prominently.

The Condor

The second geoglyph we are looking at, The Condor, is also an example of something non-native to the geographical location of the Nazca. Again, I’d like to call out the Muggles on this particular shape, for their mythologies are littered with references to them. How they did not see that this is a phoenix confuses me to no end. Granted, phoenixes are not native to the Americas, but this bird is clearly magic and quite possibly on fire, if you ask me and pretty much every magianthropologist in the field.

Again, this geoglyph is fascinating as it also implies that the Nazca civilization had contact with people and magical creatures from across the globe. Perhaps this was simply a Phoenix that wandered off course that the Nazca saw and tried to welcome by creating its image, or perhaps it was loyal to a witch or wizard who they met. Either way, the Nazca, again, clearly had encounters with those who lived very, very far away.

The Owlman

I have saved my favourite geoglyph for last. I can’t blame the Muggles for this one, as they have admitted that they really have no idea what it is. Their best guess so far is a fisherman, as the creature seems to be holding something that could be a fish, but they’ve also thought it is an alien, an astronaut, and a myriad of other possibilities, each one less likely than its predecessor. Allow me to enlighten you. It’s actually a poncho that the creature is holding. A piece of clothing, which is rather important to a house-elf as you know. Let’s look at a side by side comparison of the two:

The question you may now be asking yourself is why the Nazca would create a geoglyph in the shape of a house-elf. We do know that house-elves are completely capable, independent sentient beings, apart from the penchant to serve others. So, it’s certainly possible that some may have crossed Beringia with the humans tens of thousands of years ago and eventually took up residence in South America during the Andean Civilization. We also know that the Nazca created amazing textiles, and that ponchos were a standard article of clothing for the people.

Why then did the Nazca create a geoglyph of a house-elf holding clothing? Were they demonstrating their kindness towards house-elves? Perhaps a colony of house-elves lived with the Nazc? As house-elves tend to leave no trace of their presence, and the Nazca have vanished, we simply have no way of knowing for sure. Given the Nazca openness towards magic in general, I believe that they would have welcomed house-elves with respect.

Conclusion

And that brings us to the end of our lesson for today. I hope you enjoyed learning about the Nazca as they have always been a favourite of mine. Our next two lessons will cover the ancient Maya and bring us back to the somewhat familiar topic of pyramids - you didn’t think we left those behind when we left Egypt, did you? Until then, you will have two assignments to complete: an essay on the Nazca geoglyphs, and a quiz on today’s material.

Image credits here, here, here, and here
Original lesson written by Professor Liria Morgan